I never got around to updating yesterday. Everyone's probably assumed this, but the exercise turned out to be over nothing very dangerous at all.

Guys in Hazmat suits searched for a time, and then issued the all-clear. I haven't heard what the suspicious package turned out to be. Whatever it was, it's not anything to be worried about.

Cautiously Pessimistic informs me that the suspicious package at Dallas Fort Worth airport turned out to be an antique microphone.

Syrian musicians, famous Baghdad wedding singers, antique microphones, the Dixie Chicks and Bruce Springsteen-- I'm beginning to recall why I hated music class and everyone in the marching band.

Posted by: Ace at 11:02 AM | Comments (6)
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First, I want to make sure I thank everyone again for their donations on behalf of Johnny Coldcuts. I appreciate them, even if he doesn't.

By the way: Does anyone get my thank-yous? PayPal notifies me of each donation, and then I reply with a thank you; but for some time I've wondered if those thank-yous are going to the donor or just to some PayPal addresss. I don't think I've ever gotten a reply.

If no one's actually getting these thank-yous, I'm sorry. All I can say is: I've sent out a thank you after each and every donation. Let me know if you've received them. If you haven't, I have to figure out what I've been doing wrong in replying.

UPDATE: It turns out there were a bunch of donations in the past two weeks I never thanked the donors for. I'm sorry about that-- it's that problem I mention, below, of putting off responding until I can think of something funny to say, and then forgetting to respond at all. A good number of donations came in through last week, and I put off responding. Then I went away for the weekend, and completely forgot I had people to thank when I came back. I hope you'll forgive the lack of consideration.

Next: I'm adding blogs to my blog-roll soon, maybe this weekend. If not this weekend, Monday or so. I used to be able to keep up with those who were adding me by checking Technorati. Not to brag, but I can't do that anymore; I've got too many linkers to scan through the lists looking for new ones.

So, if you're linking me and want to be linked, please drop me an email as soon as you can.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (22)
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It's not all bad news:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Coalition forces battled militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in several Iraqi cities Friday, saying they killed about 300 militants in Najaf over two days of fighting. Battles in other Shiite areas of the country have killed dozens more, according to Iraqi authorities.

Two U.S. Marines and an American soldier were killed in Najaf on Thursday, and 12 troops were wounded, the military said. Fifteen U.S. soldiers were wounded in Baghdad.

Damnit. Still, they took a host of these bastards with them.

In Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, U.S. helicopters on Friday attacked militants hiding in a cemetery near the Imam Ali Shrine in the old city at Najaf's center, where smoke could be seen rising. The fighting began Thursday in Najaf and has since spread to other Shiite areas across the country, as the truce that marked an end to a similar rebellion two months ago appeared to have been shattered.

Al-Sadr blamed the United States for the violence in Iraq (news - web sites) in a sermon read on his behalf Friday in the Kufa Mosque close to Najaf.

The interim government had called America "our partner," he said. "I say America is our enemy and the enemy of the people, and we will not accept its partnership."

Regardless, al-Sadr's aides called Friday for a return to the truce. They asked for the United Nations (news - web sites) and Iraq's interim government to stop the violence.

The Arab Way of War. How many times will we fall for this shit?

I hope -- I pray -- I even trust -- that the al-Sadr experiment is over. Kill him. There is no other option.

Posted by: Ace at 09:27 AM | Comments (5)
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This is just awful news:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers added a paltry 32,000 workers to payrolls last month, the government said on Friday in a startlingly weak report that led Wall Street to forecast a slower pace of Federal Reserve (news - web sites) interest-rate rises.

...

The Labor Department (news - web sites) also cut its tally of job growth in May and June by a combined 61,000, adding to the weak tenor of a report that came as unwelcome news for an election-bound President Bush (news - web sites).

...

Wall Street economists polled last week had looked for a payroll gain of 228,000, although a weak employment reading from a service sector survey on Wednesday had some bracing for a weaker number.

Still, they were stunned by July's lackluster figure.

"It's a huge disappointment, a big surprise," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Fla. "It implies a very sharp revision to the overall outlook for the economy."

...
While the Bush administration could point to the creation of 1.5 million jobs in 11 straight months of hiring gains, Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry could accurately claim the economy is still down 1.1 million jobs since the president took office.

Manufacturers added a meager 10,000 workers in July, after cutting a revised 1,000 from their payrolls in June. The department noted a loss of 21,000 jobs in the transport equipment industry, which it pinned on larger-than-usual retooling shutdowns at auto plants.

This is obviously not cowbell news. Exactly the opposite.

What is the opposite of cowbell? Well, this is, unfortunately:

This jobs report just made it 15% more likely that Terezzzzza will be your first lady.

Pic from The Country Store.

Too Gloomy? The short answer is "No."

Although I understand the impulse to seek media bias, the fact is that this is bad news and can't be spun. The media is biased in favor of news that hurts Republicans, but in this case, their bias happens to overlap with objective reality. This is bad news that hurts Republicans.

Does this mean that there won't be any additional jobs created? No, of course not. Economies naturally go through peaks and stalls. There may be another peak coming, but the latest reports say we're in a stall. It's better to be in a peak.

And it's especially harmful that these two months of anemic job-growth come right before the Republican convention. Bush will have to be rather careful about trumpeting the economy at the moment -- the facts, alas, are not on his side. At this moment. Longer-term, yes, we've had very good job growth. But even as he notes the job growth over the past ten months, Democrats will respond by noting the weak job growth for the past two months. And their facts will be quite right, although their interpretation ("the expansion is over") is highly debatable.

The skyrocketing price of oil has taken its toll on the economy.

Others note the fact that the household employment survey shows much better job growth than the wider payroll survey. This is true, but it's been true for a long time, and the fact of the matter is that economists have much greater faith in the latter indicator-- the one that's not so cheery. Even if some on the right are correct that the household survey is, for some reason, now the more accurate guage, perceptions matter, and there will be no point in the foreseeable future at which time the perception becomes that the household survey is more important.

It should be noted that consumer confidence is now at a six month high. But I take little solace in this. The public is very skittish about the economy; it's taken them a long time to appreciate that the economy is, in fact, growing, and growing at a fast rate. I don't think it will take much bad news at all to shake their newborn optimism before it can get steady on its own two legs. And I think this latest news is more than enough to reverse the painstaking gains in public optimism about the economy made, bit by bit, over the past year.

I think the public is very slow to credit good news and overly quick to react to bad news. Their general inclination is sourness as regards the economy; this news reinforces that inclination, and suggests to them that their previous cautious optimism was actually wrong.

But this isn't disasterous news; it's just bad news. The economy may begin churning out jobs again before the election, now that it's had its summer swoon; despite problems (chiefly energy costs), the indicators remain strong. And even without another round of gangbusters job growth, it remains a fact that the economy is growing, albeit much slower than we might like at the moment.

As you all know, I had been hoping for a Perfect Economic Storm going into the fall. An expansion of such dimensions that not even the liberals could deny it. Obviously, we don't have that at the moment, and the projection isn't looking terribly good. It might be the case that I've been overly optimistic and hence my reaction is unrealistically gloomy, but based on the remarks of economic analysts -- tossing around words like "huge disappointment" -- I don't think this is a big factor.

June had anemic job growth; optimists called it an aberration, a fluke. Well, July has truly weak job growth. That doesn't necessarily prove a trend, but it does make that "fluke" argument ring somewhat hollow.

And no one's talking about Bush completely erasing his jobs-deficit by November anymore. Unless the economy creates 400,000+ jobs in August (possible, but right now unlikely), no one will bandy around such talk again. Personally, I've gone from hoping that the economy will be a net positive for Bush in November to hoping it will be neutral to mildly negative.

I'd like to be surprised, of course. The Amish surprised me. Why not the economy?

Does Talking Down the Economy Work? Have the Democrats and their Liberal Spirit Squad in the media managed to slow growth?

I ask because this is my gestalt take on what's been happening with the economy:

Indicators rise like gangbusters. Businesses grow confident, begin hiring.

But the public take on the economy remains sour.

Eventually, this public sourness causes businesses to stop being so confident, and they slow their hiring and investment.

The public finally seems to realize we're in a strong recovery-- but they reach this conclusion just as businesses are moving in the other direction. Soon, the public realizes that the economy isn't as good as they had just imagined it was, and they sour again.

This has happened a few times.

A booming economy needs a virtuous cycle to sustain itself. Business confidence feeds consumer confidence which feeds business confidence which in turn feeds consumer confidence, and etcetera and etcetera.

But I've been frustrated for the past year that we never seem to actually get into this cycle; the pistons are always misfiring, out of sync with the others. Eventually one spluttering piston slows down the others. They're never firing in good timing with each other, which is what our economic engine needs.

I know that when Clinton had good economic news in February 1996, the media made damn sure the public knew it, and public sentiment (which had been gloomy for four years) quickly matched the basic underlying economic indicators. The economy then moved in good sync, firing on all cylinders.

But it hasn't been quite that way this time 'round, has it?

Posted by: Ace at 08:19 AM | Comments (10)
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Well. Who on earth could have foreseen this development? Apparently no one in the mainstream media. But a couple of bloggers were able to use their scary powers of recollection to remember that Ansar al-Islam was and is an Iraq-based terrorist organization.

Did the media "forget" this fact or did they merely decide to suppress it? Did they really imagine we had forgotten where Ansar al-Islam was based out of? Or that we wouldn't figure it out if they didn't explicitly remind us?

Anyway. Thank God for FoxNews:

ALBANY, N.Y. — Information found in Iraq led federal investigators to become suspicious of an Albany, N.Y., mosque leader, FOX News has learned.

Last summer, U.S. troops discovered Yassin Muhhiddin Aref's (search) name, telephone number and address in a book left behind in a vacated terrorist training camp, a U.S. official told FOX News. The book also revealed that Ansar al-Islam, the group running the camp, had given Aref a title: "the commander."

Aref, 34, is the Imam of the Masjid As-Salam mosque in Albany, N.Y. He and one other mosque leader were arrested Thursday and charged with helping an undercover informant posing as a weapons dealer who was plotting to buy a shoulder-launched missile that would be used to kill the Pakistani ambassador in New York City.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 PM | Comments (7)
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Bearded Barn-Raisers Boost Bush in Battlegrounds

Stories like this are what make blogging fun. Who knew?:

The Amish live without electricity, cars, telephones, and usually, without voting. But they are being sought out this year as Republicans try to sign up every possible supporter in presidential battleground states.

Amish almost always side with the Republican Party when they do vote - making them an attractive, if unlikely, voting bloc in the neck-and-neck campaign between President Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry. A majority of the nation's Amish live in key swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

"Pennsylvania and Ohio are just absolute battleground states, and to think that the Amish could weigh in to the tune of thousands of votes that are clearly going to be Republican - that could be very significant for Bush," said Chet Beiler, a former Amish who has been dropping off voter registration forms at Amish businesses and farms in hopes of signing up as many as 3,000 new voters.

As pacifists, most Amish avoid political activity that they believe would link them even indirectly with government-sponsored violence. But hot-button social issues, coupled with gentle prompting from people like Beiler, are galvanizing some Amish to register to vote.

"We hate that abortion issue," said Sam Stolztfus, 60, an Amish farmer and gazebo maker in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, where an estimated 27,000 Amish live. "We're totally against it. And as far as gay issues, that's completely contrary to the Bible."

The bearded Stolztfus proudly says the Amish are "sort of swept up with Bush fever."

"You could hold up a dead mouse with a sign 'I love Bush' and we'd still probably think twice about stomping that mouse underfoot."

Top Ten Reasons the Amish Support Bush Over Kerry

10. Feel that Kerry's brightly-colored ski-parkas are both "proud" and "English"

9. You gotta admit, George Bush looks a little like Harrison Ford in Witness

8. Although they are a deeply pacifist people, they have collectively decided that Al Qaeda "needs the mother-loving shit kicked out of them"

7. They just think Bush would be more fun to share a honeyed mead with

6. The Bush economy features booming growth in dynamic sectors of Amish industry, such as Cooperwrighting, Chandlery, and Corncob-Pipe Whittlin'

5. Impressed with George Bush's promise to "build a bridge to the eighteenth century"

4. Laura Bush looks like she really knows her way around a butter-churn

3. Bush offers a return to a more innocent time, before children were corrupted by square-dancing and hemmed pants

2. Kerry's politics remind them too much of the progressive, hypermodern agenda of Millard Fillmore

Â…and the Number One Reason the Amish Support Bush Over KerryÂ…

1. They think that Kerry seems a bit of a geffaedelicher, which roughly translates from Old German as "self-satisfied douche-tool"

Hat tip to Nick Sylvain.

Posted by: Ace at 09:32 PM | Comments (6)
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Package found at ChaseManhattan bank at 55th and Park. Now another block (56th street block) is being cordoned off as well.

No link. Based on first-hand reporting from source at scene. No report as to what the package might be.

Normal warning: This is probably nothing. Let's just all hope and/or pray that that is the case.

Coincidence or Enemy Action? Another suspicious package found in the luggate at Dallas/Fort Worth airport. (Requires registration.)

Lucianne.com is still reporting that it is believed to be a pipe bomb. But shouldn't they know either way by now?

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (2)
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This ought to scare the beejesus out of them, all right:

“I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history.”

Well, that's it for me. This is officially now a pro-Kerry blog. Like Sullivan, I just wanted him to tell me he'd be tough on terrorism.

Related News!!! Following Senator Kerry's very-sensitive example, I hereby vow that I will wage a more sensitive war on Oliver "Filet-O-Fish" Willis, that I will pull my punches when I bitch-slap him, that I will enlist other weenies like Joshua Micah Marshall in my struggle against him, and that I will not pre-emptively attack him, but that any attack from him will invite a swift and certain response.

Eh, fuck it. I'm going to kick him in his great big jiggly ass whenever the hell I feel like it.

Posted by: Ace at 11:26 AM | Comments (17)
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I have little to add to this story, but it's so important I have to link it anyway.

These searches may turn up exactly nothing at all. But it is worth noting that apparently the Feds had sufficient evidence to obtain a search warrant in this once-dead investigation.

A lot of evidence? No; not necessarily anything more than a scrap. Even a liberal judge is going to be pretty forgiving when it comes to issuing a warrant in connection with this crime. But they have some evidence, some tip-off, something to make them want to search in these specific locations.

And speaking of which: the locations are in Wellsville, NY and Newark, NJ and not Virginia or Maryland, or anywhere near Steven Hatfield's former residence.

Is it possible these warrants were issued on the basis of "dated intelligence"? We'll just have to wait and see.

We'll also have to wait and see if the searches are taking place in Muslim neighborhoods. That would, of course, signal a change in theory from "lone white terrorist with some job-related grudge" to "foreign terrorists," and that's especially interesting, because there are only a couple of foreign countries from which Muslim terrorists could have procured anthrax of such high technical production, and Iraq is both of them.

Update! A few more details here.

The locations are "houses" in Wellsville, NY, which on the Canadian border. (Uh-oh.) It's also near Buffalo. Uh-oh.

This article doesn't mention Newark, but does mention Lavallette in NJ, which is a dinky little shore town.

It says the arrests are unrelated to the Albany sting... which doesn't mean much at all.

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (5)
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Don't expect the fair and balanced journalists preferred by ultraliberal Congressional Democrats to underscore this point:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, N.Y., were arrested on charges stemming from an alleged plot to help a man they thought was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile, federal authorities said Thursday.

The men have ties to a group called Ansar al-Islam, which has been linked to the al-Qaida terror network, according to two federal law enforcement authorities speaking on condition of anonymity.

Ummm, here's a relevant question: In which country has Ansar al-Islam been based for the past decade?

Apparently this reporter just "forgot" that little nugget.

The two arrests came as FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agents executed search warrants at the Masjid As-Salam mosque and two Albany-area residences, officials said. The men were identified as Yassin Aref, 34, the imam of the mosque, and 49-year-old Mohammed Hoosain, one of the mosque's founders.

According to law enforcement officials, the two are being charged with providing material support to terrorism by participating in a conspiracy to help an individual they believed was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile.

Does anyone remember this story?:

Russia Warned U.S. About Iraq, Putin Says

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that his intelligence service had warned the Bush administration before the U.S. invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein's government was planning attacks against U.S. targets both inside and outside the country.

...

After the March 19, 2003, invasion, authorities in Yemen and Jordan broke up plots by Iraqis who were preparing to bomb Western targets in those nations, and U.S. intelligence warned 10 other countries that small groups of Iraqi intelligence agents were readying similar attacks against Americans and other Westerners, according to U.S. government officials.

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (6)
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